Breadcrumbs

Commonwealth v. Dineen

Appeals Court (August 30, 2007)

Under G.L. c. 265, §24A, the "dual" venue statute, prosecution for any of the enumerated crimes may occur not only in the county where the crime took place (in this case, a rape) but may also occur in the point of origin county, if the victim is "conveyed" from that origin county to another county. In other words, if evidence proves that the crime in the destination county has a relation to, association with, or connective link to the county from which the conveyance originated, the prosecution may take place in the origin county and not necessarily where the crime occurred.

The defendant was convicted of statutory rape predicated upon an act of sexual intercourse with his biological 15 year-old daughter. The defendant was convicted in Hampshire County, where his daughter was living at the time. The actual rape took place, however, in Hampden County where the defendant lived. The defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that venue was improper since the Commonwealth failed to prove that the defendant's conveyance of the victim from county to county was undertaken with an intent or plan, pre-existing at the time of crossing from the origin county, to commit the rape in the destination county where the conveyance ends. The Appeals Court disagreed.

In this case, given that the defendant picked up the victim at her house in Hampshire County on the day of the rape and engaged in the deliberate act of conveying her away from Hampshire County to his house in Hampden County, and given a prior pattern of serial sexualized contact, as the defendant repeatedly transported the victim back and forth between the two counties in connection with acts of sexual exploitation (and where some other acts of sexual activity between the defendant and the victim occurred in the origin county where the victim lived), there was a direct connective link between the conveyance and the ensuing rape. There was no error.